Windows 7 vs. Windows XP for a music laptop

Are you sure you're talking about XP and not a DOS-based Windows (98, Me)?

Since Windows 2000, I never had a problem with Windows performance getting worse over time.

 

Either will work. I assume your hardware only accepts RAM up to 1GB. I used Win 7 on a 1GB machine for a month or two before upgrading the RAM, and it ran just fine (on an old Pentium machine). If I were you, I'd buy a copy of Win7, because you'll want it for your next machine. XP is a dead end now.

I agree with an earlier post that your built-in sound card may be the bottleneck. I have an old machine, but I upgraded to a 24/96 PCI card with ASIO support, and Foobar 2000 plays all my music files just beautifully. For tasks like playing music, older machines can do just fine with the proper equipment (there's still a lot of processing power there).

 

Duh question: what if I decide to run to an outboard USB DAC? Then does the internal sound card really matter?

 

That is not the answer for everyone. It's almost as bad as telling people to "just get a mac".

To change over to Linux or a Mac involves investing in a whole new ecosystem. Linux is free, but involves quite a bit of savvy from the user, and, unless one is an experienced computer geek, can't get most Windows-based software that might have been heavily invested in. Going Apple requires $$$, and, again, a learning curve.

Sometimes the person asking the question just wants to stay within the Windows world. Nothing wrong with that.

 

No. I brought up onboard sound quality so that ypou would be aware of the issue.

If your USB DAC doesn't come with an ASIO driver, Win 7 might be a better choice than XP. (The audio stack in Win 7 is technically better than that in XP.)

Bill

 

First off, it was a joke - seriously, I sometimes I wonder if you work for MS.

Secondly, it's actually not the same thing as "Just get a Mac" because yes it is free and probably works on the OP's hardware. So there's really no investment, other than the OP's time.

If you had gone up a page or two, you'd have seen my initial response. So yes, if W7 is an option for the OP then I would recommend that the OP try it.

I have a netbook with 1GB of RAM and Windows 7, and it runs fine. Granted, it's not the same hardware as the OP's and it's not like you can run a dozen apps at the same time, but for basic browsing / docs / music / light multitasking it works fine. Plus with Win7 you can actually use a USB flashdrive as a "ReadyBoost" RAM extender (not sure if this would work with USB 1.1, if that's what the OP's laptop has).

@ the OP -- Is W7 a free option for you? Not sure if this has come up because, if it is, I would just try it out and see. EDIT: you should be able to get a trial, as well. Win7 Professional, for example, will work for 30 days without a key / activation. After 30 days, it goes into a crippled mode.

 

Just a suggestion, which is what I'm doing:

Get the laptop hooked up to the TV, run Windows Media Center so it recognizes all your music, and then if you have an iPhone (there may be something on Android, I don't know) get VMC Remote which will allow you to control the music through Windows Media Center on your remote. You actually don't even need it hooked up to the TV if you don't want - it's just an option. And get a USB DAC (which is what I have) for the DAC.

 

Yeah, thanks for that, I hadn't thought about it until re-reading your previous post just now.

 

I still keep coming back to this comment, it's a good one.

Then again, I started looking at new ThinkPads, good sale on now. And hey, you also get...BLOATWARE!*

And NO WINDOWS DISC!



*look at all this crap, makes me want to get an older machine just to do a clean minimized install. Maybe the newer machine is faster anyway...but I like having ACTUAL install discs...
Preloaded operating system20 - Some: Genuine Windows® 7
Home Premium 64 - Some: Genuine Windows 7
Professional 64
Ready to install applications14 (only some listed)
• Rescue and RecoveryTM
• Access ConnectionsTM
• Fingerprint Software (fingerprint models)
• Password Manager (fingerprint models)
• ThinkVantage System Update
• ThinkVantage Power Manager
• ThinkVantageToolbox
Preloaded applications14 (only some listed)
• NortonTM Internet Security 2011
(30 days of virus definitions)
• Adobe® Reader®
• SkypeTM for Windows
• Microsoft Office 2010 preloaded;
purchase product key to activate
• Adobe Acrobat® X Standard
(bundled with Microsoft Office)
• Corel® WinDVD® (DVD±RW)
• Corel Burn.NowTM Lenovo Edition
(DVD±RW)
• Corel DVD MovieFactory® Lenovo
Edition (DVD±RW)

 

All that stuff came on the old Thinkpads too.

Rescue and Recovery is nice enough.

The rest you can ditch.

But the lack of recovery disks doesn't seem like a problem. There is a partition on the HD that allows you to restore any time you want (unless the HD dies). Plus you can burn your own recovery disks from the partition.

 

Most manufacturers also provide recovery discs on demand, at a small cost, if you provide your license number.

But these are always recovery discs, not full installation discs. It means your laptop will be restored to the initial state (as you bought it), with the old drivers, the useless software and the preconfigured settings.

 

x2 with what Grant wrote. You might even be able to make your own recovery DVDR, depending on how the OEM image was setup. There might be an ISO image on a D drive and if so I would try to burn that to a DVDR , IF it's single layer. If it's bigger than that, I'd actually take that whole restore folder and dump it onto a flash drive or external hard drive. My reasoning is that, if your HDD fails, you still have the restore folder elsewhere which could be usable when replacing the HDD and then running a repair to rebuild the OS. YMMV of course.

 

Read my comment again. Thinkpads have a turnkey option to burn recovery disks. But they are only needed if you replace the hard drive, because the recovery stuff sits on a separate partition on the hard drive that can be accessed even if something happens to your Windows installation. And they can restore the system while keeping your data. This is actually a good feature.

And everything you list came on my T40 which I bought in 2004, so I don't see what getting an old one will do for you.

 

I worked on an HP or Gateway laptop recently that was similar. However, I would burn / backup the recovery area as it's just as likely that a HDD may fail vs. just an OS issue. I don't even do this for a living but I've had more than a few friends and neighbors who've had hard drives physically fail.

 

I have never tried, or had to try it, but I would think that, unless you had all of your programs reinstalled and tweaked, it may not work.

 

I forget if it was an HP or Gateway, but this person's HDD was bad, and in the wrong place on the drive (lots of problems in C:\program files and system32). But their recovery partition was intact. Reinstalling the OS wasn't even possible as this person had no discs for me to work with.

I managed to lift the entire recovery partition using an Ubuntu LiveCD, yep you know how much I love Ubuntu , and transferred that to an external HDD. And their user folder too (which was mostly intact). From there, I burned the ISO that was on the recovery partition, we dropped in a new drive, and away we went - it was back to how it was on Day One. Then finally we just transferred back all the user data.

I don't normally don't do this on my own systems, but since this was someone's else's PC and license, I had to work around with what I had. Obviously having a second system, the ability to take the laptop's drive out and mount it elsewhere and my own external drive as a transfer point were all key pieces to get this working.

Side note: this same person whose laptop I worked on has a ton of 60's and 70's vinyl in boxes, and his turntable is also stored away. I'm still working on convincing his to get those out of storage and play them again!

 

And since you made recovery discs from the back-up files, why did you recommend this method over making recovery discs in the first place?

Most users don’t have a clue as how to use a recovery partition saved to an external flash drive. They do understand how to just pop in discs in which can automate the process.

 

Well, Grant and I got a little off track, but just read between the lines. Assuming the OP (or anyone else) has a laptop with a recovery partition, it's a good idea to back that up (or burn the ISO, if there is one) in case you need it in a pinch. "Pinch" meaning your HDD completely dies on you and you can't read the recovery partition anymore.

In the case of this one laptop I was working on, it just so happened that I managed to lift this information off because I had the tools - but I agree with you that most consumers won't have that option. And that's why I'd recommend two things for every single person who owns a computer:

1) Have that recovery disc ready. Don't wait until your HDD fails and then go scrambling. Call your vendor for help and have that DVDR around with your important things, in advance. And I'd still backup the partition as well, just to have it (I believe this laptop had a 10GB partition with the ISO and some MS recovery tools, if memory serves. With external drives being cheap, 10GB is a drop in the bucket. Plus what if the ISO you burned doesn't work?).

2) Do regular backups. That way, you don't have to try and read the data off a bad drive at all, as you have your backup.

I understand that these things could be too complicated for some people. But they also have to understand that, imo, the most likely piece of equipment to fail on your PC within a few year's time is your HDD. And if you don't have backups around, you're taking a big risk.

 

True, but an old used one I'd wipe and install fresh. The X41 I got has no OS anyway. But maybe a new machine is more powerful and bigger HD and it doesn't matter.

Interesting comments about recovery, I'll have to read those in more detail. My "Recovery" used to be "get the OS disc and start fresh to get rid of accumulated crud" but since they don't ship OS discs, that's not too viable anymore.

 

Spurred by comments here, looked at new laptops. 14" seem to be from about $500ish, and not wildly appealing to me. I prefer the old T60 at least size-wise. Newer small machines get more expensive, maybe $800ish for a ThinkPad. The Asus Ultras are really cool, but at those prices I think I'd just get a MacBook Air via a friend's discount and not fiddle with Windows at all.

The advantage of buying a used older machine is just not as much investment, especially when it might get stolen. The disadvantage does seem to be capability, and more time fiddling around.

 

You're still gonna have to deal with backups in case your hard drive fails. Just because it's a Mac doesn't mean it's a better machine.

 

Oh sure, Mac HDDs aren't any different from Windows, I've had them go out.

Currently at two backups, feeling it's not enough. Gotta take my drives out-of-state to friends to leave backups as well.